ChouquerPublitopexEN.. - Observatoire des formes du foncier dans

Gérard
CHOUQUER
Interviews with Charlotte CASTAN
The global issue
of land grabbing
Land bubble or
development opportunity?
Translated into English by Robert REAY-JONES
Éditions
Publitopex,
Paris
2012,
68
p.
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Since the Madagascan scandal of 2008, global public opinion has become deeply aware of the
increasingly significant land sales that have resulted in millions of hectares of land in
developing countries passing into foreign hands. The issue has become known as land
grabbing. In this book of interviews conducted by Charlotte Castan, Gérard Chouquer
provides the keys to understanding the global issue of land grabbing.
Based on a close relationship between initiating countries operating through companies and
hedge funds, host countries offering up supposedly vacant lands for sale, and international
institutions acting as guarantors, a ‘new triangular trade’ has emerged in which land has
become the key object of trade. Recent land concessions have paved the way for a new
geography of land ownership. This book aims to locate and to examine the dynamics of land
grabbing, viewed as an opportunity or a threat.
Available in French : Les acquisitions massives de terres. Bulle foncière ou opportunité de
développement ?
Contents
Charlotte Castan is agrégée in geography and teaches in classe préparatoire. She has
contributed to a number of publications in geography in the Publitopex series, including 2000
ans d’arpentage (2000) with Gérard Chouquer, Pierre Portet and Mireille Touzery and La
terre écrite (2001) with Philippe Pinchemel and Pierre Clergeot. Her more recent work has
focused on sustainable development training though professional training courses and
contributions to books such as Les développements durables (SCEREN – CNDP – 2011).
Gérard Chouquer is agrégé in history and a research director at the CNRS. A historian of
land tenure, land ownership and land issues, Dr Chouquer is the author of Observatoire des
formes du foncier dans le monde for FIEF and the editor-in-chief of the journal Etudes
Rurales. He is also involved in research carried out by the Ordre des Géomètres-Experts
through the association France International Expertise Foncière. He is a member of the
technical committee Foncier et Développement at the French Ministry of Foreign and
European Affairs and at the French Agency for Development, and is a regular contributor to
the work of the Fédération Internationale des Géomètres.